A key ObamaCare program, called Hospital Value Based Purchasing, rewards hospitals that do really well at 20 metrics, including things like responding quickly to heart attacks and giving patients discharge instructions when they leave the hospitals. Beginning in 2011, hospitals stood to lose as much as 1 percent of their Medicare revenue if they did badly at these measures — or earn an additional 1 percent if they outperformed their competitors.

The program, which rewards 1 percent of hospital potential compensation, had no material positive impact on the performance measured by these 20 metrics.